Testbed and Methods

We performed our tests on the following testbed:

• AMD Athlon 64 4000+ processor (2.40GHz, 1MB L2 cache)
• ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI)
• 2x512MB OCZ PC-3200 Platinum EB DDR SDRAM (CL2.5-3-2-8)
• Samsung SpinPoint SP1213C hard disk drive (Serial ATA-150, 8MB buffer)
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 audio card
• Cooler Master Real Power 450 power supply (RS-450-ACLY, 450W)
• Dell P1110 monitor (21”, 1800x1440@75Hz max display mode)
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c

Graphics cards:

• EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB (450/490/1200MHz)
• GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB (430/470/1200MHz), for details see our article called NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX: Monstrous Gaming Performance Unleashed;
• GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB (425/1100MHz), for details see our article called NVIDIA Multi-GPU SLI Technology: New Approach to Old Ideas;
• RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition 256 MB (540/1180MHz), for details see our article called ATI RADEON X850 Platinum Edition: Good Things Go Better.

Drivers:

• NVIDIA ForceWare 77.72
• ATI Catalyst 5.7

Following our methodology, we enabled the ForceWare optimizations, except the Anisotropic mip filter optimization. The Image settings slider was set to the Quality position, and we also left the Gamma correct anti-aliasing option enabled. In ATI’s Catalyst we enabled Catalyst A.I. using the Standard mode. The Mipmap Detail Level option was set to Quality. We disabled the VSync option in both drivers.

If possible, we control FSAA and anisotropic filtering from the application. Otherwise, we force the necessary mode from the driver. We don’t edit any configuration files. The graphics quality settings in the games were set to the maximum level, the same for graphics cards from NVIDIA and ATI Technologies. The following games and applications were used:

First Person 3D Shooters:

• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Doom 3
• Far Cry
• F.E.A.R. Multiplayer Demo
• Half-Life 2
• Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell
• Unreal Tournament 2004

Third Person 3D Shooters:

• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

Simulators:

• Colin McRae Rally 2005
• Il-2 Sturmovik: Aces in the Sky
• Lock On: Modern Air Combat

Strategies:

• Perimeter
• Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War

Semi-Synthetic Benchmarks:

• Aquamark3
• Final Fantasy

Synthetic Benchmarks:

• Futuremark 3DMark03, build 360
• Futuremark 3DMark05, build 120